Cunard Line, the UK based premium market company in the Carnival Corp & plc group, will transfer its three ships to the registry of Bermuda from that of the UK and start to offer weddings at sea, the company said in a statement.
Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria will continue to fly the Red Ensign of the British merchant navy as Bermuda is a British dependency.
Peter Shanks, Cunard President and Managing Director, explains: “Most of our competitors have been developing increasingly popular and lucrative ‘Weddings at Sea’ programmes, and these are now very big business in the cruise industry. We receive a lot of enquiries about the possibility of being married on one of our ships – particularly about weddings in mid-Atlantic on board Queen Mary 2, which no other company can offer”.
Cunard’s ‘Weddings at Sea’ programme will begin after the World Voyages have been completed in Spring next year and will offer a number of packages on all three ships. A brochure detailing the programme will be issued in November, and the programme will go on sale in December 2011.
In the past, passenger ships operated by Cunard have flown the flags of e.g the Bahamas and Panama in addition to that of the UK.